Authentic leaders have been called upon when an increasing number of modern CEOs have committed to the corporate scandals and, therefore, have collapsed their corporations. Authentic leaders are those who remain true to one's self and make continuous...
Authentic leaders have been called upon when an increasing number of modern CEOs have committed to the corporate scandals and, therefore, have collapsed their corporations. Authentic leaders are those who remain true to one's self and make continuous and optimistic outcomes for their organizations. This theory of authentic leadership emphasizes that the leader should have the authenticity on one's self before leading others. The theory postulates that it is not true leadership that one who is not sincere to the self leads others. In an age of limitless competition, authentic leaders build the positive psychological capacity and help those who suffer from organizational stresses.
The concept of authentic leadership is thought of as an independent root concept. First of all, authentic leadership is the independent concept distinguished from other leadership theories such as ethical and transformational leadership. Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson (2008) demonstrate its discriminant and construct validity. It is also the root construct for leadership style approaches such as charismatic, transformational, ethical leadership (Avolio & Gardner, 2005) in that it provides the foundation for the leadership style approaches to exercise the influence through their behaviors and skills. Authentic leadership makes up for the limitations of existing leadership theories, because it highlights the foundation for the leadership behaviors and skills to be accepted by followers on a voluntary basis.
The latest focus in contemporary corporations are on how to define the authentic leadership and develop leader's authenticity. This is a huge challenge because corporations considered immoral but competent leader as a necessary evil. In this context, this study will examine positive effects of authentic leadership in corporate life compared to those of charismatic leadership. That is, we develop the research focused on the team leaders and members and try to demonstrate the effects of authentic leadership beyond those of charismatic leaders. Also, this study examines the interaction effects between charismatic and authentic leadership, and thereby verify the conception of a root theory for authentic leadership.
The response variables are the perceived credibility for leader and follower's well-being. The credibility of leader is key for leaders to exercise the influence. The lack of credibility is known as the most fundamental factor demolishing leadership attempts. Also, managing follower's well-being becomes gradually significant as most of young workers value their growth and development more than organization's performance.
Based on existing theories and literatures, the first set of hypotheses predicts that authentic and charismatic leaderships will increase the perception of credibility for leaders and the effect size for authentic leadership will be larger than that of charismatic leadership. The second set of hypotheses predicts that the two leaderships will increase followers' well-beings controlling for the other. The second hypotheses also predict that authentic leaders will increase psychological well-being more than subjective well-being, while charismatic leaders will increase subjective well-being more than the other. The third set of hypotheses predict the moderation effect of the two leaderships on the outcome variables.
In order to test those hypotheses, this thesis designed a survey on teams in two corporations and collected data from team leaders and followers. To resolve common method variance, we collected the same data from team leaders and their followers at the same time.
Overall, the results supported the first set of hypotheses predicting the positive effect of authentic leadership on perceived credibility. However, the results show mixed support for the second set of hypotheses and the moderation hypotheses. The specific findings are as follows.
First, the three components of authentic leadership (i.e.., self-awareness, self-regulation, and relational transparency) enhances the perception of credibility for leaders. However, only vision components of charismatic leadership has the positive influence on perceived credibility marginally. The findings indicate that the leaders should display authentic leadership if they want to get the credibility from followers.
Second, the component of performance for charismatic leadership has the positive effects on subjective well-being with marginal significance, while authentic leadership has no effects. Also, self-regulation of authentic leadership and pursuit of performance of charismatic leadership enhances psychological well-being. Therefore, in order to generate follower's subjective well-being, demonstrating performance is required. In contrast, if the leader wants to increase follower's psychological well-being, the leader is required to demonstrate self-regulation.
Third, the results of the interaction effects between authentic leadership and charismatic leadership are not consistent. Some hypotheses are statistically significant, but some of them have the opposite directions compared to the predictions. Overall, the results show that the interactions between two leaderships turn out to be negative or insignificant, which requires careful interpretations.
The thesis draws several implications. First, this is the first empirical study examining the effects of authentic leadership controlling for the effects of charismatic leadership. Second, this study finds that the leadership credibility is developed through mainly authentic leadership rather than performance and vision driven charismatic leadership. Third, psychological well-being is ensured by authentic leaders' self-regulation behavior, whereas subjective well-being is enhanced by charismatic leaders' performance driven activity.
This thesis has several limitations. First, most interaction hypotheses are rejected, so we should identify the clear underlying theoretical logics and mechanisms, which produces synergistic effects between two leaderships. Second, this research may suffer from the theoretical under-identification problem, because it doesn't consider the various factors affecting well-being and credibility. Third, the response variables are perceived constructs. Future research may need pay attention to some objective response variables such as performance. Finally, one research factor this thesis did not take into consideration is the developed organizational contexts. Scholars claim that the true potential of leadership is realized when it meets developed organizational contexts. The future research should investigate this possibility by testing the effects across various organizational contexts.